In this way Mark Wilken was effectively forced to retire. One bright spot was that he’d won his full pension for twenty-two years of labor, but with that he was barred from working at a for-profit company. It was as though the company was saying, We will give you this bit to survive, but you must stay where you are, in your place. Get drunk if you must but do it with cheap beer. So he took a position as a courier at a hospital, hallwaying around interdepartmental mail, manila envelopes with red string. Before taxes, he made $7 an hour.

Nobody knows exactly what he felt, because he didn’t share the dark bits. But the dissipation of dignity can drive even the strongest men mad. He didn’t sleep and went to a lot of AA meetings.